The Book Lovers

A book review blog that aims to reach out to the average reader and book lover.
If you feel strongly about a book you've read and would like to review it, write in to us and we will put your review up on this blog.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

One writer that I admire and envy(in a good way) is Moni Mohsin. Every time I read her Butterfly series I wish we had a writer like her in India. Her wit, sarcasm and humour in her books is near perfect. I know this sounds very fan girlish but I have no hesitation in admitting that!

So Butterfly is back the third time and this time she chronicles her tales post Benazir politics of Pakistan. Butterfly through her tabahi diary entries takes a swipe not just at the hi-fi society ladies of Isloo (uf oh Islamabad) . While Butterfly claims to have zero love for politics but comes across as an astute commentator of the goings on in Pakistan.

This time in the book though she is at her fiery best, the reader also can feel her concern for her country and how it impacts her 'crack' husband and equally 'crack' son. Her love hate relationship with her sisters in law and her mother in law is something many women will instantly connect with. What makes Butterfly absolutely lovable is her confidence in herself despite the rest of her family thinking otherwise.

While the author does attempt to show the ugly mess that Pakistan is in right now through the diary jotting of Butterfly but that is something we would want the reader to read and find out.

The author's razor sharp wit makes this book a must must must read. Highly recommended reading. Long Live Butterfly and more importantly a request to the author to keep writing the life and times of Butterfly!

There are some people who need no introduction, their work speaks for them, Kuldip Nayar, is one such person. Out of many of his books I recently read Scoop the tagline of the book mentions it as providing 'Inside stories from the partition to the Present' Present being till 1999. The book is a good read that gives insider info to events that unfolded post partition. As a young journalist who started his career with an Urdu Daily to serving as a press information officer to Gobind Ballabh Pant and Lal Bahadur Shastri to Emergency the book covers some anecdotes from all his journalistic years.

He while sharing some stories from his stint as a press information officer to Lal Bahadur Shastri also ensures that he sticks to fact telling rather than trying to spice up events as they unfolded or show off in anyway his proximity to the leader. What many in today's writers seem to have forgotten when chronicling their lives and times in important roles in the government.

The book extensively covers the post indepence era from the eyes of a journalist, From Nehruvian period to Shastri era (however short lived) to his scathing attack on the emergency era, also covering the then political upheavals in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The book is an interesting and candid collection of some important news events in India's post Independence history. Do read for a quick reckoner to India's contemporary history.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Recently we read two books authored by people we love to follow on twitter and through their blogs. Their humour, wit and sarcasm on every topic (especially current affairs) has been exceptionally fantastic. So when we heard that the hugely popular blog The Unreal Times had come up with a book on Indian Elections, it was a on our must read list. The book turned out to be as much fun as we had expected. Indian politics with its very complexities has always had people very seriously opining on it but thanks to the authors who through their satire have made our politicians, if we may say so, more likeable. Most of the chapters in the book have their extremely popular FB updates of some well known politicians and the following comments to the updates. The humour will have you laughing out loud literally. The book clearly establishes the author duo C S Krishna and Karthik Laxman have their finger on the political pulse of the nation. It does go a bit over the top in the end but clearly a good read. A great debut and looking forward to many more books from The Unreal Times, till then we continue to read their blog.

The second book we read is from Aditya Magal (the man behind the parody account of the renowned stockbroker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala)..Aditya has been extremely popular on twitter with his funny and hilarious tweets as the parody account, his blog The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala also has many followers. So it came as no surprise when we heard he is writing a book, we expected the book,like his tweets to be larger than largest, grander than grandest, funnier than funniest. Did the book match our expectations? Yes again. For a debut author it is a good effort, How to become a millionaire by selling Nothing, is a fun read. Though it does seem to stretch on a bit at the end and the humour at places does seem a bit forced but nevertheless it makes for a funny read. If you are looking for a crazy, whacky and funny book go for this.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Yes the blog has been silent for long, but not anymore. We shall soon be sharing more reviews, author interviews, book events, author interviews and upcoming releases on this blog shortly. If you are a publisher/author please do send us details about book releases, author interviews, book contests to the following email id: bookwelove at gmail dot com

If you are a passionate book lover and love to review books we will be giving access to a few select people to share their posts, author interactions on this blog. If this sounds interesting write to us at the above mentioned email id with subject line as Book Reviews.

Looking forward to hearing from our readers and also a new innings on this blog!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Battle for survival. One can come up with a dozen things that this phrase could connote - it could be the intrepid attempts of a regiment in a war to stay alive while in the clutches of death or it could be the very battle a species being threatened with extinction employs. Further still, if one were to let the imagination run amok, it could be the very fight the humans are involved in when being overrun by aliens (yeah, harken back to Pullman's wonderful speech in Independence Day!). Or it could be the arduous and dauntless journey one subjects herself to in order to defeat the disease that is eating her from within, the struggle to stay alive so that her daughter does not end up growing up without the warmth and shelter of a mother. Past Perfect is exactly that and then some.

Anna Varughese diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (an abdominal dysfunction) at the age of four saw her relegated to a life of poking and prodding, highly monitored food-on-a-plate and a truckload of medicines. Her condition sometimes improves and often nosedives making a normal life quite impossible. Against these odds, Anna manages a life that had some semblance of routine; she manages to finish her MBA and becomes a mother. The final verdict on her disease came when she got to know that her liver was badly damaged and needed replacement; it was at this juncture that Past Perfect took shape in the form of memoirs to her daughter, a last-ditch attempt at letting a daughter know how much her mother battled for survival and how much she was loved; an account of the lovely childhood that her mother had amidst scores of cousins and family. I am not going to detail the nuances that this book has to offer or the actual occurrences in her life, one has to discover these for oneself for it is the tale of a grueling journey undertaken by a brave woman told in an effortless fashion that is at once compelling and absorbing. I am going to stick to those facets of the book that I found captivating.

Tales of personal suffering and individual uphill battles are a dime-a-dozen each carrying their own merits and traumatic experiences but as a book they sometimes fail to deliver the content that makes it engaging enough. So what does Anna do in order to not relegate herself to the common pile? For starters, her love for books and the fact that she is a voracious reader is amply evident in her style of writing. She abstains from resorting to wax eloquent as is a common pitfall of personal tales but she trusts simplicity to do the job. The prose is often breezy and immediate that keeps the reader engrossed enough to keep those pages turning. The anecdotal experiences are narrated so forthrightly that the reader can instinctively connect to the emotion within - that for me is exactly what a personal account should do, it should draw the reader in and invite him to be a part of the story. Another thing that impressed me is the brutal honesty that is present throughout the narration. Anna has no qualms bringing to light her own shortcomings or flaws as much as she criticizes those around her for their faults, a healthy dose of honesty does wonders in helping to understand the person behind the words. She is also candid in stating that she is not a brave person and that the battle she was subjected to was due as much as to a lack of choice than anything else. I, however do not entirely agree with this sentiment for I do not believe that a person can tread such a perilous fight without some trace of will; yes, there was a lack of choice but to give up is always a choice that a human being has to which Anna never resorted to. That, to me speaks volume of the strength that Anna possesses and her will to survive against such heavily stacked odds.

Phrases like "Indian culture", "traditional ethics", "family value-system" and many more like those are so often misplaced and confused when narrating a story such as this. But Anna sets it right in the way she enmeshes these aspects into the story. Whether she is at loggerheads with what is accepted as societal norms (daughter-in-law paying obeisance by touching elders' feet) or if she is lauding the irreplaceable devotion of those near and dear to her always ready to lend a support, Anna is at ease; this is another aspect where Anna's candor is at the forefront lending to brilliant narration. Anna is a born raconteur and some of the things she said were actual eye-openers for me. For instance I did not know that some Christian families ancestry traces back to Brahmanism and thus practice customs which I did not know existed in Christianity (like naming the children after maternal and paternal grandparents or the presence of "thali" or "mangal sutra" in their marriage rites) - these facts make the book even more interesting and lend an irrefutable authenticity to the tale. The final icing on the cake that makes Past Perfect, well.... just about perfect is the silent homage it pays to the fundamental importance of the family value system and the beauty that is motherhood. Never in your face extolling the greatness of either, it is indisputably present and tangible enough. At every turn what eggs Anna on to witness the dawn of the next day is Aditi, her daughter. It may sound clichéd but one cannot refute the source of strength that it is. I, for one cannot imagine any reader not envying Anna her rich childhood and the phenomenally tightly-knit family that she got to be a part of (the whole part about Anna in Kerala with her family with games, food and fun is such a pleasant read). Neither their faith in her nor their tireless devotion to her well being is ever in question thus playing a more than significant role in seeing Anna's victory in the end. A special mention that is more than necessary is for Anna's mother (one of her rocks of Gibraltar as Anna puts it herself!) and Tarun (Anna's better half). Tireless in their efforts to keep Anna afloat, they are without question the pillars of support without which this battle would never have been fought, leave alone win.

There can be no review without some bellyaches now, can there?! Well, I do not mean to find faults just for the sake of doing it but Anna's pretty frequent use of "What if I am not around tomorrow?", "Will I live to see...?" laments could have definitely been toned down. I do not dare suggest that this is an indulgence on her part, by no means. A story that is this powerful and heart rending would definitely mean that the narrator would have been in throes of self doubt whenever life had a new curve ball to throw at her. I just mean to suggest that on hindsight these could have been fine tuned for the book. A minor gripe, I assure you that takes nothing away from the book. I would have also liked more photos (there is an array of photographs inset in the middle of the book) for putting a face to a name means that much more in a story such as this.

I definitely cannot end the review on the note above, that would be injustice! Past Perfect is a story of will and courage that results in triumph. It pays tribute to something that seems to be dwindling in our lives of late - values of family and love, it does so in a fashion that is not pedantic but natural, something that is not forced into its pages. Anna Varughese's debut is well written without doubt; yeah she did have a story already but the presentation is what makes the difference and Anna manages it with panache and skill. This is a book that can be enjoyed as a simple tale without being burdened with the trauma that is present within, the breezy style and matter-of-fact writing makes it possible. Unquestionable is the salute that the books manages to pay to motherhood and its strengths, something that could well use a little bit of reaffirmation in present times.

(I intend to have an email interview with Anna and I would be following this up with that interview)

THE SUPERSTAR SYNDROME : THE MAKING OF A CHAMPION (HARDCOVER) PRICE: RS.279

Hidden in each of us is a superstar waiting to come to life. Often we struggle to find this, not because we lack talent, desire, or ability, but because we dont know the right steps to take. Frequently, we surrender to a sea of negative emotions and self-doubts right at the very beginning, or give up after a few setbacks. Dr Myra S. White and Sanjay Jha provide a comprehensive nine-step roadmap to help you succeed in the workplace and other areas of your lives.

The Superstar Syndrome is the ultimate success bible based on the lives of over 80 well-known people, like N.R. Narayana Murthy, M.S. Dhoni, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet and Ratan Tata who transformed themselves from ordinary people into exceptional achievers. It covers all aspects of what you need to know and do to successfully make the journey to superstardom how to identify and manage your special talents, build power, influence and deliver A-level performances and illustrates each step with examples from the lives of the well-known superstars that were studied. It makes you believe that the finish line is not just within your reach, but opens up dreams and possibilities beyond.

Reviews

The Superstar Syndrome is a captivating and colourful read that through some fascinating stories strengthens our self belief and makes us realize our often untapped potential. A thoroughly engaging and enjoyable book which delves deep into the human psyche and the superstar resident within each one of us.Naina Lal Kidwai, President, FICCI and Country head India and Director Asia Pacific, HSBC.

The Superstar Syndrome is not about how to become one, but to release your natural talent to exhibit your true stardom. This is because you are a natural superstar, whose stardom is hidden. Here is a book that tells you how to take off the covering. Enjoy reading chapters like know where you are going to know how to have fun. All this and more for a few dollars.Gopalakrishnan, Director, TATA Sons Limited.

The Superstar Syndrome is a book filled with wisdom, wit and well-known leadership superstars. There are myriad case studies and tips gleaned from the fascinating success stories of a wide ranging group of famous superstars from Warren Buffet, Lady Gaga and even Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, to Lee Iacocca, Ratan Tata, Margaret Thatcher and Sam Walton. Dr Myra White and Sanjay Jha have done a superb job. They obviously practice # 9 on their Superstar Roadmap Know How to have Fun. They must have had fun writing this book and I am sure the readers will also have fun reading it.Peter Handal, Chairman and CEO, Dale Carnegie and Associates.

I was fascinated and inspired by the stories narrated and would strongly recommend this book to all who are seeking to make a difference to their own lives and to the world in which they live.Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR, Corporate Services and After Market), Mahindra & Mahindra.

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